KoreaGrowing U.S. concern over North Korean miscalculation
U.S. officials are increasingly concerned with the escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula and the risk of miscalculation. The fear is that North Korea’s young leader, Kin Jong Un, may have launched the harsh rhetorical campaign against South Korea and the United States for domestic reasons – especially the need to establish his leadership credentials in the eyes of the skeptical North Korean military – but that his youth and inexperience may lead him to over-play his hand. “He is 28, 29 years old, and he keeps going further and further out, and I don’t know if he can get himself back in,” Rep. Peter King (R-New York), former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said.
Representative Peter King (R-New York), the former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told reporters on Sunday that the recent threats and warmongering rhetoric coming out of North Korea is not an “empty threat.”
King also said that while he does not fear a North Korean missile attack on the United States, he is worried that Kin Jong Un, the North Korean leader “is trying to establish himself … trying to be the tough guy,” and may “:box himself in” and feel the need to make an aggressive move with his military.
“My concern would be that he may feel to save face he has to launch some sort of attack on South Korea, or some base in the Pacific,” King said on ABC’s This Week.
CNN reports that in recent weeks North Korea has become more belligerent, declaring that the 60-ywar armistice keeping the peace between North and South Korea has ended, distributing a photo with a “plan for the strategic forces to target mainland U.S.,” and, on Saturday, announcing it was entering a “state of war” with its neighbor to the south.
In response, the Obama administration has increased U.S. military capabilities on the U.S. West Coast and in Alaska, and has beefed up the U.S. military contribution to joint U.S.-South Korea training exercises.
The North Korean state-run news agency posted headlines such as “Nuclear War to Be Conducted on Korean Peninsula,” but a U.S. official told CNN, “We have no indications at this point that it’s anything more than warmongering rhetoric.”
“It’s sort of like an organized crime family running a territory,” King stated. “He’s brutal, his father is brutal, his grandfather was brutal.”
King also told CNN that he does not “see any purpose” in President Barack Obama talking to Jong Un by telephone.
The United Stat and North Korea currently do not have diplomatic ties, but in the past the two sides have discussed the country’s nuclear weapons program and exchanged messages using diplomatic intermediaries.
Ed Gillespie, former senior adviser to GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, said the administration made a “sensible reaction.”
“I think in addition to that, it would be good for the administration to not only bolster our own missile defense, but to support Japan and South Korea with missile defense,” he said on Fox News Sunday. “They are nervous, understandably, and I think doing anything — everything we can to reassure them would be helpful. And obviously, you know, trying to get China to engage in their own region in a way that would be helpful, I think, with Kim Jong Un would be important, too.”
King suggested that the North Korean threats cannot be dismissed because Kim may believe he has to attack due to the fact that he keeps upping his threats.
“He is 28, 29 years old, and he keeps going further and further out, and I don’t know if he can get himself back in,” King told CNN.
